


Home is where the heart is, as well as the dragon.

by orphan_account



Series: Fullmetal Femslash February 2014 [2]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist, Fullmetal Alchemist (Anime 2003), Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dragons, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, F/F, Femslash, Femslash Challenge 2014, Femslash February
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-03
Updated: 2014-02-03
Packaged: 2018-01-11 00:46:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1166601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Winry Rockbell has two major issues in life. One of them is massive, dangerous, and threatening to burn her up entirely.</p><p>The other one is an elephant-sized fire-breathing dragon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Home is where the heart is, as well as the dragon.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Femslash February. Prompt I2 on my bingo card, "High Fantasy AU". Inspired by Anne McCaffrey's _Dragonriders of Pern_ and Arakawa Hiromu's own one-shot, _Stray Dog_ in addition to my own finagling. I actually rather quite liked this AU and will probably go back to write more for it. All the animals are dragons. Which means Riza Hawkeye and May Chang had better get involved at some point.
> 
> It should be fairly self-explanatory, but if you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment. Please note that "xe/xir/xem" is used as an all-purpose gender neutral pronoun in this fic whereas "ze/zir/zem" is someone's specific preferred pronoun. Enjoy!
> 
> Ahh, Paninya is so important to me.

When the messenger boy summoned Lodgemaster Satella LeCoulte to an emergency in the sunning yard, the noblewoman presumed some sort of dispute between two of the larger denizens of Rush Valley over one of the more ideal spots. Or perhaps some novice Rider’s beast had fallen asleep and the frantic greenhorn could not stir xir partner. Or perhaps the messenger boy secretly wished for a whipping for crying wolf at such an ungodly time of the day.

Thus, by the time the Lodgemaster set aside the scalemail orders she had been glancing over, arrived in the sunning yard, and found herself staring at about the last sight she had ever expected, she had to search for her tongue for a moment prior to catching hold of the wriggling thing somewhere behind her rapidly thudding heart.

“That’s . . . that’s quite a dragon you’ve got there.”

The blonde woman patted the brilliant sapphire flank of the gargantuan beast sprawled over the sunstones in the courtyard, sable horns corkscrewing over a snout thick as LeCoulte’s waist. Massive eyes the size of xir Rider’s head, lidded horizontally, nearly blinded her with the dark, rich blue of the outer rim and the flaring vermillion swirl about the pupil, as though the dragon’s irises had themselves caught ablaze. The white beard extended down the dragon’s ruffed throat and onto xir blue-taloned forepaws. Laying on its left side, the dragon presented xir belly towards the warm rock, gold fragments glittering in xir stomach fur. “Her name’s Den,” the newcomer announced in a strong Eastern accent. Definitely the Rider, judging by the identical azure of her eyes. “I’m Winry Rockbell, and I’ll be movin’ in.”

“I don’t recall an application for a Miss Rockbell.” LeCoulte noted, unable to entirely keep the annoyance from her tone. “Rush Valley, as you know, is an _extremely_ busy Lodge considering the high-quality catering we give to our lovely dragons, thank the Ascended. If you require a Lodge, I’m sure I could put you up somewhere. Have you considered South City?”

Miss Rockbell shrugged nonchalantly. Den lifted her head slightly, slid her third eyelid wetly over her eyes, and yawned. Her bluish-black tongue would potentially rival the largest dragons at the Lodge. “Yeah, have you seen ‘em? They’ve got some awful service. I’ll only take the best for Den. But I’m willin’ to pay.”

LeCoulte tried an understanding smile: Amestris knew her East as a bed of rockheadedness. “I understand, but I cannot accept—”

Out of nowhere Den shifted heavily to her paws, wings rustling noisily, and something glinted silver. Her side had hidden her limbs from view: a scalemail left leg. And two blond boys, the shorter of which yelped indignantly at the missing support, fell onto the sunstones, and twisted around to glare the intrusion. Gold eyes. A Military Dog. The second followed suit. Another Dog.

She hadn’t seen a Dog in years, not since the Cretan Conflict that had ravaged the countryside and left the entire West in ashes. Their reappearance implied a supply, a demand, a need. Somehow the Lodgemaster kept her rictus painfully fixed upon her mouth.

Yet what a girl from the East was doing with a scalemail dragon and a pair of Dogs escaped the Lodgemaster.

Clearing her throat, LeCoulte stiffly bowed to the military weapons. “Enjoy Your stay. Thank you for gracing our humble Lodge with Your esteemed presence.”

The Dog scrambled to His feet and glared. A trickle of sweat uncomfortably cool on the back of her neck, the Lodgemaster stepped backwards. His wrist caught the blood-hued sleeve of His robe. Another glimmer. A scalemail arm? Impossible. Not even the most skilled scalemail forgers could replicate the wide range and precise dexterity of human movement. Simply a trick of the light, LeCoulte supposed. The Dog pointed to Miss Rockbell. “She’s the best damn forger you’ll ever meet in your entire fucking life,” He snapped, “so you’re gonna put ‘er up. And stop with the fancy-shmancy respect. I’m just like any guy, a’ight? Anyway, I’ve got the funds.” Miss Rockbell grimaced, making an obscene hand gesture in the Dog’s direction. LeCoulte’s face paled: One did not simply provoke a Dog without fear of the swiftest, most painful death known to any mortal. Yet the Dog hastily amended His statement: “ _She’s_ got the funds.”

“There is no need to pay, for You are—”

He held up a hand. “I can _hear_ the capitalization. Stop that shit.”

“What Brother means,” the second Dog added gently, “is that we’d like you to treat us like normal people. Because we _are_ normal people.”

Den barked out a laugh that trembled her wingtips. The Lodgemaster of Rush Valley inclined her head. “Very well, Miss Rockbell. Please follow me to select a stable.”

 

Nearly overnight Winry Rockbell proved a sensation. By the end of the week almost the entire population of Rush Valley had popped by to visit the mysterious Eastern woman followed about by a giant dragon that the Beastmaster had identified as belonging to a rare Xerxian breed thought extinct and two gold-eyed Military Dogs who refused to reveal so much as Their favourite colours but who ran amok demonstrating Their indescribably incredible talents. Maybe more miraculously, Winry Rockbell brought with her the knowledge of what she called _automail_. Scalemail, but for humans. Evidently she had served as the crippled Dog’s forger for years. Silently the rumour spread that the Dog had been slated for execution after His injury and that He had barely escaped with His life and with His younger brother. The revelation that Dogs could possess siblings shocked the Lodge as well, but the boys bit Their tongues and remained shrouded in mystery. The younger brother, however, became popular for His exquisite fascination with lithe Aeurogish dragons, famed for their deep-set thrum-purr of happiness, while the older busied Himself redecorating the Lodge centimetre by centimetre by continuously breaking objects and promising to fix them—in His style. Winry Rockbell warned Rush Valley of giving out the information about either her location or that of the Dogs. Despite the constant comings and goings of those in the Lodge, not a word slipped out for months as the forger crafted scalemail—ah, automail—for anyone who required it. The Lodge had taken on the strange woman, the giant dragon, the angry Dog, and the purr-happy Dog under its collective wing, as scaled and fire-heated as that wing may have been. Fortunately, those who spent their days in Rush Valley, expensive and secluded, tended not to move, or, if they did travel outwards, take up residence in private manors to continue correspondence with the scalemail forgers who would service their dragons.

With time, however, sounds, like anything born of human hands, spread far beyond their original intention, and before long a peculiar face appeared in Rush Valley. Peculiar, for her lovely Cretan features, her full lips, her short-shorn yet attention-drawing hair. Peculiar, for how far she had travelled without a dragon, on foot, her endurance more than slightly impressive. Peculiar, for her lack of a family name, only a given, Paninya.

The locals, still caught up in their admiration of Winry Rockbell even as her presence settled into normalcy, paid the new woman no mind except to extract a tithe for the Lodge and to warn her about the consequences of spilling on the Dogs. She could leave Rush Valley, of course, yet the pressure threatened to chew her up and vomit her out into the Lodge’s feasting chamber for the dragons to pick their fangs on her splintered bones and cough up her gristle in wet globs of fur and skull.

Paninya soon disappeared into the mundane, for striving to lurk in the shadows serves one little but to make one all the more visible. By hiding in plain sight, on the other hand, she vanished entirely. And therein, of course, she would make her move.

 

Winry opened the window and immediately regretted her decision. The sudden brightness of the risen sun, dappled by the occasional dragon winging overhead, burnt her retinas to throbbing crisps. “Who said it could be morning already?” she moaned. Backing up and rubbing her eyes furiously on the heels of her palms, the forger glanced at the soft covers swimming on her downy bed. The exhaustion of staying up all night crafting new automail meant for a Rider who had lost both of zir legs in a terrifying accident with zir dragon hit her all at once. Hollowed out her bones like Den’s. Floated her over to the mattress after she ensured Den had landed: Falling asleep in mid-air invariably led to _falling_ in mid-air, which could seriously wound or slay even a dragon. The warmth accepted her wholeheartedly, darkness washing over her vision the instant her cheek touched the curve of the pillow.

An abrupt noise of groaning metal shattered her dreams. For a moment she wondered what had startled Den from slumber; then she noticed the shadow on the wall, the backlit being silhouetted by the effuse midmorning light. Throwing herself up and fighting the covers tangled around her arms, Winry stared at the apparition, which froze momentarily, leaned over, and wrapped xir meaty hands around the automail legs on which the forger had spent her entire night.

“Oi.” Winry smacked her feet on the floor as she swiped a wrench from her bedside drawer. Automail in grasp, the thief jerked back towards the window. Teetered. Stumbled. Winry lunged. A sickening crunch signaled contact between her wrench and the thief’s arm. Metal clanged to the floor. “ _Oi_ , what are you _doing_? I swear on the Riders Ascended that if you so much as _scratched_ —”

The thief dove for the window. Ah: Winry had neglected to close it earlier. But then again, she hadn’t considered the possibility of some vermin sneaking in to filch her prized creations. Nails scrabbled on the wooden sill. Without losing sense of the thief, Winry dropped to her knees to examine the automail: The legs had remained intact, the only damage clear in this half-light being the grimy fingerprints left on either ankle. Now that her first priority had faded into a mental note to buff the shine back into the metal, a righteous fury boiled her blood. Eyes narrowed to angry slits, left hand tensed into a shaking fist, Winry returned to her feet and slammed her palm on the thief’s shoulder. In response the thief managed to lift xemself onto the sill, tipping dangerously on the edge between the window and the sunning yard five or six stories below. Winry clutched at the slick fabric of the thief’s tight top. “Wait—this isn’t what I— _don’t jump out the_ —”

Suddenly her heart thumped, once, on her sternum. The next second an overpowering wind flumed in through the window, cracking Winry’s head against the floor, knocking the thief from the sill and into Winry’s lap. An enormous sable pupil ringed with fire and set in sapphire peered through the window. Den snaked her muzzle through the window, built specifically with the dragon’s head in mind, and snorted smoke, ears flicked back.

Her skull throbbing from the collision, Winry waved to indicate her wellbeing. “Thanks, Den! I owe ya a big tummy-rub later, I swear!” Then she noticed the thief shuddering in her lap. Fear, mused Winry. The Rider signalled her dragon, who huffed with satisfaction and withdrew from the room. The thief’s spasms continued as Winry scooted away to heave herself to her feet. She offered the thief a hand. “Are you all right?”

“Damn fine,” the thief snarled, the icy venom in her voice tempered by the scarcely held-back tears just beneath the surface of the tone she was so desperately trying to keep wrathful.

A woman. A woman without shoes, now that Winry glanced down. Without shoes . . . and with wooden stumps where her feet should have been.

The lantern light flickered on in Winry’s mind followed by a wash of self-directed fury and shame. “Is your arm okay? Can you stand?”

“I don’t need your damn help. Rich fucks.” Shakily the thief lurched up, clasping the sill for support and tottering on the ill-fitting pegs. Winry swallowed her tongue. “I guess it’s time for me to skip town. Don’t worry; I’m not gonna spill the beans about your little magic curs.”

Only the knowledge of the root of the thief’s spite prevented Winry from weaponising her wrench over again. “You could’ve just asked me, y’know.”

“Don’t sweat it. I’ve seen your prices.” The thief wiped her mouth and turned her head towards the window. Winry, startled, recognised the thief’s profile in the light: Paninya. “They’re right and proper for all of these wealthy Rush Valley bastards. Don’t need my business, right?”

“That’s not it. I charge high because I know they can afford it.” Oddly drained, Winry seated herself on the end of the bed. The blankets crinkled under her weight, bunched at the folds. “It’s no secret that I pull plenty of stuff for no profit, just the parts. And you could afford spendin’ Lodging here, so I kind of figure that—”

Paninya rubbed her forearm where a violent violet bruise had begun to spread. “Just so ya know to shut your damn mouth, I spent most of my savings on one day’s rent. Then I just start livin’ on the low-down. I can’t afford your shit.”

“You shouldn’t have stolen.”

“Gee, think I haven’t thought through that myself?” Presently she was rubbing both of her arms, no longer searching for bruises. Or at least not for those _on_ her skin. Her timbre softened. “I’ll be outta your pretty blondie hair in a coupl’a minutes if you gimme the chance.”

Winry tapped her palms against her thighs in thought. “Wait. Paninya, right?”

Paninya’s fingers twitched en route to the sill. “What do you want?”

“What if we worked out—what if we worked out some kind of deal?” Now the forger bounced up in excitement. Paninya attempted to sidestep her and slid forward on the wood-wood contact; Winry caught her, holding her up until she regained her balance. “Would you mind workin’ for me?”

In turn the would-be thief blinked. Cocked an eyebrow. Her irises, Winry observed from nowhere, shimmered the bluish-black of the midnight sky. “Workin’ for you? Doin’ what, exactly?”

“Being my apprentice.” No more all-nighters. No more stumbling into bed half-dead from the sheer workload of demand. No more inability to help everyone she wanted to. “I’ll teach you to make automail, and while you learn, you work for me. Then you can go off’n make your own coin. _And_ —” She pointed upwards with a forefinger. “— _and_ I’ll make ya new automail. Free of charge. As an advance for helpin’ me out with being my apprentice’n all.”

Winry watched Paninya knead her lower lip. Pumping her fists in front of her chest in her eagerness, the forger bounded up and down on the balls of her feet. At length Paninya _smiled_ , and Winry could almost hear the choir of the Riders’ Ascended heavenly chorus. “You’d let me do that?”

The forger shook her head hard enough for her dragon-tails to untangle and muss gold in her face. Brushing her hair from her eyes, she grinned. “I’d _love_ you too.”

To her surprise Paninya flung her arms around her waist and hoisted her bodily into the air for spinning embrace. Winry yelped. “Wait, watch the wood—”

They slipped and thudded back to the floor. Den paused by the window to peer in, woofling nervously. Giggling and snickering, Winry and Paninya waved the dragon off together this time. The Rider wiped the sweat from her forehead. “Welp, first things first: Gotta fix that guy’s legs. ‘Sides, they wouldn’t’ve fit ya anyway. Gotta make every order special, y’know.”

Paninya scratched her ear sheepishly. “Should’ve figured.”

“C’mon.” Winry waggled her eyebrows. “ _Apprentice_.”

 

Nearly overnight _Paninya_ proved a sensation. Winry Rockbell’s Military Dogs took to her as a dragon to the skies, and Den would demand her “tummy-rubs” from Paninya almost as often as from her Rider proper. Few acted shocked when the apprentice caught up to the master yet stayed in the Lodge. Fewer batted an eye when the two forgers worked side-by-side in the sweltering heat, pausing between sessions to kiss in the sunning yard or take long flights on Den’s back, alone together. And fewest still so much as blinked by the time the two married, the Dogs standing in for Winry's parents, the LeCoultes for Paninya's, the Lodgemaster herself presiding over the ceremony. At the newlyweds’ kiss, Den breathed out a spray of fireworks, liquid lapis lazuli sparkling over the fiercely proud Lodgers. The blue rose bouquet landed in the outstretched palm of one Rosé Thomas, blushing furiously and refusing to meet the patient gaze of a certain dark-haired woman in the stands. The Dogs transmuted their wedding dresses to party slips, and the reception saw moonrise and set until the Riders Ascended rode pink across the horizon. “So much,” whispered Winry to a laugh-snorting Paninya blushing from an extra glass or five of wine, “for not pulling any more all-nighters.”

But that would be years down the line. For now, Winry Rockbell had given Paninya a leg or two to stand on.

And for now, Paninya had given Winry a home to rest her heart.


End file.
